Ed Cooper | Homicide Watch Chicago

Prosecutor: Teen killed in money dispute between gang factions

Sun-Times Media Wire — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 15:31:48 -0500

A teen was allegedly ordered to kill another gang member because of a financial dispute between two gang factions, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Dyvell Mallet, 16, walked up to a group in the 600 block of North Lawndale on July 8 with a gun, raised a gun and fired multiple times, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Jamie Santini said.

One of the bullets struck 15-year-old Ed Cooper in the chest, and he collapsed after attempting to run to a vacant lot, Santini said. Witnesses said Mallet ran from the scene with the murder weapon, authorities said.

After his arrest on Tuesday, Mallet allegedly admitted his role in the murder to police, telling detectives he is a member of the Conservative Vice Lords street gang and that he received orders from a high-ranking member of his gang to shoot and kill a member of a different faction of the gang, Santini said.

The shooting was over a money dispute between the factions, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

Mallet is on probation for possession of a controlled substance. He also was charged with heroin possession last year.

Teen charged in murder of 15-year-old boy

Sun-Times Media Wire — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 16:58:45 -0500

A teenage boy was charged with murder Wednesday for fatally shooting 15-year-old Ed Cooper this month in the West Garfield Park neighborhood.

The 16-year-old boy was charged with one count of first-degree murder, according to police, who were not releasing his name because he is a juvenile.

The boy is accused of fatally shooting Cooper in the chest about 5:10 p.m. July 8 in the 600 block of North Lawndale Avenue.

Cooper, of the 1200 block of South Kostner Avenue, was found shot and paramedics took him to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:54 p.m. July 8, authorities said.

Police said Cooper did not have any gang affiliations.

The 16-year-old was arrested Tuesday, police said. Bond information was not immediately available.

West Side mom mourns her teenage son

John Carpenter — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 15:47:14 -0500

Video by Chris Buddy

Slain teen was able to stay away from West Side gangs, until Monday

John Carpenter — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 15:41:55 -0500

John Carpenter and Cat Zakrzewski
Homicide Watch Chicago

If Ed Cooper loved playing video games in his bedroom even more than the typical 15-year-old boy, his mother let it slide. Those games, and his beloved pet cat, kept him out of reach of the gangs in Lawndale.

“He would stay in the house and watch TV and eat cereal all day,” she said.

But even Cooper, an A and B student at Orr Academy High School who police confirmed had no gang ties, liked to get outside every once in a while to play real basketball with his friends.

That was the plan Monday evening, when he was murdered.

Cooper’s father dropped him off at Lawndale and Ohio a little after 5 p.m. He didn’t notice the black van that rolled up nearby at about the same time, and didn’t think anything was amiss until he heard five gunshots as he was pulling away.

He turned around and saw his son lying on the ground in a vacant lot across the street.
“He was running and they shot him,” Jerome Wordlaw said.

A police source said a black van pulled up near the park where Cooper and his friends were standing. A gunman walked up to them and started shooting as the boys ran away. Cooper was shot in the street and continued running, falling in the middle of a vacant lot. A patch of blood-stained ground could still be seen Tuesday on the spot where he died.

The source said the shooting appears to have been part of a dispute between rival gangs, though it is not known precisely why the group Cooper was standing with was targeted.

Charlotte Wordlaw, Cooper’s mother, was also in the neighborhood at the time, and heard the shots. She thought they were fireworks, but a boy ran up behind her and told her “Ed’s been shot.”

“I get there and pull up the one-way street, my baby laying there in their arms in a vacant lot on Lawndale and Ohio.”

Wordlaw said Tuesday she was still angry at police for not letting her go to her son as he lay on the ground.
“I said: ‘My son is taking his last breath. If my son is gonna die right here, goddamn it, let me see him die.’”

Wordlaw said her son, the third of four children, was a homebody. But she didn’t mind since it kept him off the streets.

“I try to keep him from going over there,” she said, adding that some friends teased him for not playing outside enough. “They be teasing (saying): ‘You don’t do nothing. You don’t come outside.’ But you see when he do come outside, they take his life. An innocent child.”

Cooper was entering his junior year, and was starting to think about options for college. His mother said he hoped to study criminal justice, and to become a police officer.

Cooper would have turned 16 July 22. He asked for an outfit from a popular clothing line, which his mother said she got for him.

“My baby wanted a True Religion outfit. Now I have to bury my baby in his True Religion outfit.”

Teen boy shot dead on West Side

John Carpenter — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 09:30:11 -0500

A 15-year-old boy was shot to death Monday evening in the West Garfield Park neighborhood.

Ed Cooper was found with a gunshot wound to his chest about 5:08 p.m. in the 600 block of North Lawndale Avenue, authorities said.

Cooper, of the 1200 block of South Kostner Avenue, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died several minutes later, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

Police said Cooper is not known to be affiliated with any gangs.

Area North detectives are investigating, but nobody is in custody.